A true Lolita must nurture a Rococo spirit and live a Rococo lifestyle.[1]

Momoko Ryugasaki

So begins Novala Takemoto’s novel, Kamikaze Girls, known in Japan as Shimotsuma Monogatari (“Shimotsuma Story”), and the inspiration for Tetsuya Nakashima’s 2004 film of the same name.[2] Spawning a manga version, illustrated by Yukio Kanesada in 2005, it is an example of shÅjo (teenage girls’) fiction that weaves together the stories of two unlikely companions, Ichigo (“Ichiko”) Shirayuri (played by Anna Tsuchiya), a yanki, or delinquent biker-punk and member of a rough all-girl bÅsÅzoku (motorcycle gang); and the narrator, and main protagonist, Momoko Ryugasaki (Kyoko Fukada), a so-called “Sweet Lolita” who, enamoured with the Japanese fashion brand Baby, the Stars Shine Bright,[3] lives in a constant reverie of Rococoesque lavishness, as an escape from the realities of Shimotsuma and her ignominious upbringing. The primary thread is the coming together of these two girls from opposite ends of the spectrum, at first a reluctant and seemingly incongruous partnership, and the bond that is formed through similar teenage anxieties related to “growing up”, memories of childhood hardships, feelings of alienation and isolation, and their escapist personalities. I aim to propose that these themes are pertinent not only in a reading of the relationship between the two characters in Kamikaze Girls but that they represent increasing societal concerns in regard to contemporary Japanese youth culture, poignantly reflected and inferred by ideologies surrounding the Gothic & Lolita subculture, and the phenomenon of the “Lolita”, who, in association with her appearance, is often referred to as a “living doll”.

(Image Shimotsuma Story Media Partners)

A “Lolita” is a member of a youth subculture, generally known as the Gothic & Lolita movement (G&L), which originated in Japan and is rapidly gaining worldwide appeal. The style of the “Lolita”, or gothloli (gosurori), is influenced by fashions of the Rococo, Romantic and Victorian periods. It is based on the spirit of nineteenth-century Gothick; on Victorian mourning garb, particularly for the little girl; and inspired by dolls’ dresses, children’s wear, and clothing depicted in Victorian illustrations of fictional female child characters, such as those by Sir John Tenniel for Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Alice, Through the Looking Glass. Occasionally, garments are also decorated with Alicefigures, or motifs taken from Western gothic fairytales: favourites are Little Red Riding Hood and The Sleeping Beauty. The fashion involves a taste for layers of bloomers, petticoats, panniers, aprons, pinafores and ruffles, often finished off with bonnets, Victorian headdresses, parasols, and Mary Janes or platform boots. Particular footwear favourites, especially for Takemoto’s character, Momoko, are Vivienne Westwood’s Rocking-horse Ballerinas, an appropriation of traditional Japanese geta,ribboned ballet slippers, and modern raised-sole shoes. The total ensemble, a concoction of frills, lace, broderie anglaise, ribbons, bows and embroidery, combines to create an image resembling that of a child/doll.

In Kamikaze Girls, Momoko Ryugasaki is a “Sweet Lolita”, a type of gothloli.[4] In the case of the Sweet Lolita, there is an emphasis on the representation of the child, on Rococo elements rather than the Gothic,[5] on frothiness, bows, bonnets and pretty parasols. Her dress is generally made up in one pastel colour, mostly candy-floss pink or baby blue, and sometimes mixed with white or cream, raspberry, navy or black. Also associated with the Sweet Lolita, but often re-categorised under Country Lolita, are inclusions of ginghams, dainty dollhouse florals, spots, stripes, tartans, checks, and fabrics patterned with cakes, ice-cream sundaes, or fruit motifs, such as strawberries or cherries. Main sources for the sweeter Lolita ranges in Japan are Angelic Pretty, Manifesteange Metamorphose temps de fille,[6]Victorian Maiden, Innocent World,and Baby, the Stars Shine Bright (BTSSB), the latter being, the fictional Momoko believes, the only purposeful point to her existence, and the ultimate requisite for many discerning real-life Rococophiles.

The figurehead for G&L is commonly identified as Mana, one of the leading fashion designers of the movement. Although not the originator of the style, he is often accredited with its invention, due to his high profile as one of the subculture’s most recognised and prominent personalities, and certainly one of the most influential. Mana gained his cult status as lead guitarist for the legendary Visual-kei (vijuaru kei = “visual style”) band, Malice Mizer (1992 – 2001). The musical genre, Visual Kei, is marked by a highly flamboyant, theatrical, heavily made-up style that places an emphasis on androgyny, and an effeminate, even feminine, form of male dress. Mana, of the now defunct Mizer, as the ultimate “Lolita”, and consummate idol of the gothloli, is renowned for dressing in an overtly feminine manner. His most recognised persona is the Gothic Lolita; more recently, for his current group, Moi Dix Mois, he has turned to an intersexual male look, adopting his more feminine identity mostly for the purpose of modelling his own fashion ranges. As one of the first celebrities to embody the Gothic Lolita, Mana can be identified as an instigator of the craze, due to Mizer’s fanatical following by young women who mimicked, and continue to replicate, his style. In that the “Gothic Lolita fashion has been one of the most popular looks in the Harajuku area since 1999”,[7] the same year that Mana launched his label, Moi-même-Moitié,and released his two major fashion lines, the Elegant Gothic Lolita and Elegant Gothic Aristocrat,[8] he is implicated in the momentum of the subculture’s popularity, and may certainly have been the first to combine the terms, “Gothic” and “Lolita”.[9]

However, Novala Takemoto, the author of Kamikaze Girls, professes that there are “no leaders in the Lolita world”, although he himself is “sometimes introduced as an authority on Lolitas”.[10] Like Mana, he is also a “Lolita” and self-confessed Rococophile:

I am… a Rococo writer who has been racing headlong in full-blown Lolita mode for years, in spite of being a straight male. Momoko… [the heroine] is pretty much my alter ego. So, if you found yourself identifying with Momoko’s spirit, it means that I have been understood….[11]

In a 2004 article, journalist Ginny Parker commented that “Takemoto… practices what he preaches. In a recent interview, the 36-year-old author wore a long black dress… and talked about his childhood interest in dolls and fairytales”.[12]

So, although the “Lolita”, or gothloli, is represented by a feminine fashion statement, some of the most significant leaders of the movement, many of them musicians and designers, are adult men. Nevertheless, although there is also a minority following of cross-dressing young males, what sets this phenomenon apart from Western subcultural groups, indeed from a model of what usually constitutes a “subculture”, is that the face of the gothloli is paradigmatically female.

Fashion theorist Yuniya Kawamura has noted, in reference to an observation by Dick Hebdige, that in the past “girls have been relegated to a position of secondary interest within both sociological and photographic studies of urban youth, and masculine bias [has existed]… in the subcultures themselves”.[13] The difference with G&L is that it is essentially a girls’ subculture.[14]

In critiquing the phenomenon, this unique quality creates two opposing perceptions: on the one hand, the movement is increasingly becoming recognised as groundbreaking; as a topic of interest, it has recently gained academic interest and media attention; on the other, the emphasis on what is deemed childish or frivolous behaviour by its members tends, for some, to lend it less weight.

Whilst the motivations behind the practice of what may be considered playing “dress up” is often, at best, passed off as merely an endeavour to make a fashion statement, the “Lolita” phenomenon should not be investigated as just another fashion trend. As the most visual expression of a subculture tends to be its fashion, so it is with G&L. To some fanatics, including the fictional Momoko, the gothloli persona is a way of life.

In the introductory narrative, via a dream sequence, of the film version of Kamikaze Girls, Momoko proclaims:

Rococo: 18th-century France at its most lavish. It made Baroque look positively sober…. Life then was like candy. Their world so sweet and dreamy. That was Rococo…. It was very cute…! Hedonism and love making were all that mattered. Out of bed they liked embroidery. Then it was back to the bedroom. And then? Countryside walks. I was smitten by Rococo. A frilly dress and strolls in the country. That’s how I wanted to live![15]

This nostalgic, escapist urge suggests and reflects deeper concerns. It should be noted that gothic revivalisms, of which G&L is arguably one, tend to coincide with eras associated with societal confusion, transition and cultural malaise.[16] These impulses have also arisen during economic crises. According to Kawamura, since “the early 1990s”, when the “Lolita” image began to take shape, “Japan has faced the longest and worst economic recession in its history”.[17] The gothloli motivation can be seen to be emblematic of a Japanese post-bubble fear, demonstrated by a reluctance to want to “grow up”.

Some Japanese students of youth culture see the Lolita look as a sign of anxieties resulting from growing up in a nation beset by economic insecurities since the early 1990s. ‘They live in a society that doesn’t feel very hopeful about its future’…. By dressing up like babies, the Lolitas are attempting to hang onto the carefree days of childhood….[18]

In other words, for the “Lolita”, this fear of the future, and a wariness of the unknown, is translated not only as a desire to return to an era that is perceived as being utopian but is tranferred to a yearning for a more secure, idyllic past, in this case, childhood, which can also be viewed as a reluctance to enter adulthood. Gothloli are therefore, symbolically, riveted between the two worlds or childhood and adulthood, or in a perpetual state of adolescence.

It is often argued that the gothloli is not consciously sexual, supported by her choice to dress as a child. However, as an eternal adolescent, there exists a dichotomy: the gothloli persona neither wholly represses or embraces a sexualised identity; yet it does both. The gothloli, even in the sense of the term “Lolita”, appears at once as a sexualised child and yet she can be seen as an adult that refuses to grow up and be sexualised. Indeed, the association of the gothloli with Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is reversed: the fictional character, Lolita, is interpreted as a child with adult feelings; the “Lolita”, or gothloli, represents an adult with childish sensibilities.

This inversion is expressed eloquently via the characterisation of Momoko (during the aforementioned dream sequence of the film version of Kamikaze Girls, whereby everyone is continually and comically jumping in and out of bed), who, in her desire to live in the “sweet and dreamy” world that is Rococo, removes herself from the “hedonism and love making” as something that they do, and pictures herself in this “candy” lifetime, busily embroidering, wearing a “frilly dress, and [taking] strolls in the country”.[19]

(Image Shimotsuma Story Media Partners)

However, despite this emphasis on childish innocence and purity, Ginny Parker has also stated that “many in mainstream Japan are contemptuous of the Lolita look”.[20] As with many subcultural identities that sit outside the normative, the gothloli tends to shock and even anger her audience, as she is seen to disrupt the social order of what is acceptable and responsible. Parker has claimed that “[fans]… talk about being called stupid by strangers, getting mean looks, and having chewing gum stuck to their dresses”.[21] Whether it’s appropriate for the public to react this way or not, as reporter Jane Pinckard has observed, “after all, [it’s] alienating to want to be someone else, even in pretend”.[22]

In returning to Takemoto’s fictional character, Momoko represents this alienated, yet simultaneously intimidating, gothloli figure, who typifies the increasing mentality of many contemporary Japanese youth, growing up in a society filled with uncertainty and therefore anger. However, “Sweet Lolita” Momoko is an anomaly in this equation. Her obsession with adorning herself in doll-like frilliness, and her desire to escape “growing up”, is not chosen in an effort to hang onto her own childhood, or retain childhood memories; her revulsion of being “grown up” rests solely on the thought of entering, and joining with, the unsavoury adult world.

For Momoko, childhood was less than idyllic, and does not represent a safehaven: her recollections are of the adult world that she has witnessed; for her, adulthood means entering a life of debauchery, depression, disappointment, economic hardship, and thus struggle and pain. Growing up with no siblings, and no friends, her only real human contact has been with dysfunctional adults; with a prostitute mother who left her behind as a young child to live with her sweet, but insane, grandmother; and with her heartbroken yakuza father, who she addresses as “the loser”.[23]

(Image Shimotsuma Story Media Partners)

Momoko has coped with this upbringing by becoming resolute in the face of hardship, by creating a defense mechanism that helps her to avoid emotion, and by “escaping” to another place that she has fantasised about, to a “world so sweet and dreamy”, where life was “like candy” and everything “was very cute”.[24] Therefore, it is not her real-life childhood that she wishes to revel in but that of a childlike dreamworld. Moreover, she fantasises about and withdraws to an imagined representation of the “Rococo” past, rather than an historical one, a place that never existed except in the realm of her own reveries. Thus she wishes to reside, forever, within this land of frilly dresses, embroidery, fairytales, and dolls – and with imaginary friends.

What alienates and isolates Momoko further is her choice to become a real-life “Lolita”. In that she lives in Shimotsuma, a place far removed from any awareness or understanding of the G&L subculture, and where she is the one and only gothloli, her decision to be “Lolita” also makes her an outcast. At one point in the film’s narration, she states: “I thought I’d always be alone. Eighty years old, in a Baby dress, dying alone….”.[25]

What saves Momoko from her fate of “dying alone”, is the meeting of Ichigo Shirayuri, a foul-mouthed yanki, who, although appearing in the beginning to occupy the other side of the universe, is a kindred spirit. When they meet, each girl is essentially alone, friendless, lonely, isolated and alienated. What unites this pair, then, is the similarity in their differences. Each of these girls has experienced a difficult childhood, and both now belong to culturally transgressive, or outsider, groups. What actually makes them unique, but the same as each other, and different from other members of their groups, is that they live outside their outsider groups. They are outcasted by the outcasts.

(Image Shimotsuma Story Media Partners)

What marks a subculture is that individuals, in an effort to be individual, or alternative, in order to reject or refuse to conform to normative society, paradoxically, choose to be seen in the “uniform” of a movement, to align themselves with its membership. This “uniformity” is what usually binds members together and creates a group based on acceptances of similarities. However, what makes Momoko and Ichigo different, but fundamentally the same, is that they don’t actually belong. Neither of them fit neatly into a paradigm of what consitutes a gothloli or a yanki; for a start they don’t have any real friends and, therefore, they are not accepted, not part of a clique. Momoko is completely friendless, only partly because she knows no other Lolita; Ichigo has “friends” but she just doesn’t fit in, especially when she begins to hang out with Momoko. So what emphasises their sense of isolation is their alienation from their respective congregations.

However, the determination to be individual, even if it means being friendless, is what Ichigo ends up admiring the most about Momoko. In defending Momoko’s “coolness” to her biker group, Ichigo says:

Momoko ain’t my friend, see? I kept saying we were buds but she never did. She never wanted to be friends with me. And you know what? I just figured out why. You all wanna be friends all the time. You all wanna be part of a group. But that’s just cuz you’re afraid to be alone, ain’t it…? Momoko here’s always alone, see? She don’t listen to nobody.[26]

Momoko is strong. She knows who she is. She is Lolita.

There is a sense of empowerment in choosing the “Lolita” way of life. Japanese gothloli, reinforced by Takemoto’s “bible”, have taken the negative connotations associated with the term “Lolita”, especially in connection with Vladimir Nabokov’s young, vulnerable, victim, or, depending on a particular reading of the 1955 novel, the precocious, promiscuous sexualised girl, and distorted the message.

There is no doubt that in simply choosing to accept the “Lolita” tag, gothloli open themselves up for interpretion and sexual discourse, especially due to the Nabokovian reference. However, they infer, “we’re aware of this, but we’re going to take this, turn it on its head, and make this our own”. It’s a defiance against perceptions, and expectations. It’s also a rejection of a particular model of what is considered “normal” behaviour. The yearning for a safe haven, in the gothloli’s urge to retain childhood security, should not be read as a retreat. It’s a resolute refusal to accept an uncertain future, and a stance against a defenseless state. As a girls’ subculture, Lolita also allows young girls to be feminine, and, at the same time, allows them to feel in control of something. It’s their choice. And their own right.

***

Why “Kamikaze Girls”? For me, this label stood, originally, for Ichigo’s self-destructive personality as a wild, rough biker girl who rode with an attitude of “live fast, die young”, because “if you’ve got nothing much to live for you have nothing much to lose”. However, eventually, when Ichigo is ousted and brutally ejected from her gang, a gang that she never really belongs to, this title, I believe, becomes a more apt description for the fearless Momoko. After realising she really does care about and for somebody, for the first time, and has actually something real to live for, Momoko goes screaming off, frills and all, on her crazy grandma’s vintage motorbike, to protect her new friend Ichigo from the savage violence she is due to receive from the other biker girls, thinking nothing of the danger, and thus possibly sacrificing her own life.

Oh Ichigo. My darling Ichigo…

You’re also the one who showed me that growing up might not be such a bad thing after all.

[2] Released on DVD with English subtitles by VIZ Media LLC, San Francisco, January 2006.

[3]Baby, the Stars Shine Bright (BTSSB) is a real-life fashion label, created by Akinori Isobe (played in the film by Yoshinori Okada), who runs the company with his wife, Fumiyo. Its first branch opened in Shibuya, Tokyo, in 1988. The brand name is said to have been taken from the title of an album by British music duo, Everything but the Girl (EBTG), released in 1986.

[5] As opposed to the Gothic Lolita who is usually dressed entirely in black, and whose style is based more on Victorian mourning dress.

[6] Often shortened to Metamorphose temps de fille, or just Metamorphose.

[7] Yuniya Kawamura, “Japanese Street Fashion: The Urge To Be Seen and To Be Heard”, in Linda Welters and Abby Lillethun (eds), The Fashion Reader, Berg, 2007, p. 344

[8] Note that Elegant Gothic Lolita (EGL) is often used to describe the entire movement. However, this term should only be used in reference to the creative output of Mana, who has, since 1999, applied EGL, and its variant EGA (Elegant Gothic Aristocrat), to his fashion ranges for Moi-même-Moitié.

[9] Although one should note that BTSSB opened its doors in 1988, offering this style of clothing.

[12] Ginny Parker, “Parasols and pink lace: Japan’s Lolita girls; ‘I’d like to go back in time, like to the era of Marie Antoinette’, says 24-year-old nurse”, Globe Style, The Globe and Mail, 25 September 2004

About the Author – Kathryn Hardy Bernal

My research background is in art, design and literature of the Victorian period, with an emphasis on Medievalism, Pre-Raphaelitism, Aestheticism, Japonisme, Art Nouveau, and Mourning. My current focus is on cross-cultural engagements between the Neo-Gothic and contemporary Japanese fashion-based subcultures, particularly Gothic & Lolita (G&L). My main interest is in conflicting ideologies around and paradoxes in the notion of Gothic Lolita.

In 2007, I was the guest curator for Loli-Pop, an exhibition for Auckland War Memorial Museum, New Zealand, which explored Japanese G&L and its relationship with popular culture (thus Loli-Pop = Lolita + popular culture), for which I was primary researcher, text writer, lender, and a garment designer. An analysis of the motivations behind and outcome of this exhibition can be examined in “Loli-Pop in Auckland: Engaging Asian Communities and Audiences through The Museum,” Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology & Cultural Studies, New Series, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2008, 81 – 110, an article I co-wrote with Bevan K. Y. Chuang, the Museum administrator of Loli-Pop,with whom I travelled to Tokyo to research the phenomenon, and document current trends.

Obviously to some extent Gothic Lolita is a pastiche, like Steampunk and other neo-Victorian modes. I was wondering if Gothloli draws visual inspiration from specific Rococo sources, such as the paintings of Watteau, or is it (as in the case of other nostalgic styles) a more generalized ‘idea’ of the past which is most important?

Hi James,
I’d say it’s more generalised. Perhaps some of the fashion designers draw their ideas from specific paintings by artists such as Watteau, Fragonard, and Boucher. But you are right that gothloli is a pastiche, and, therefore, it takes the idea, or the essence of Rococo, which is mostly an imagined/fantasy/idealised notion of the Rococo, and fuses/cuts and pastes it with elements appropriated from many other sources (dolls, Victorian mourning, Goth, fairytales, Alice, etc.). It is thus nostalgic, but also very postmodern, especially as this hybridity is used to make a new statement.

I very much enjoyed your paper at Lancaster as well as this blog! There is indeed a sense of collective angst against a degenerating society and community among the lolitas which makes the movement very appealing. Do you think that western lolitas share the same ideas as the Japanese lolitas? Is there an underlying revolutionary quality in dressing up as sweet or gothic lolita in western countries? There is also another very interesting aspect of the fashion, the existence of shops creating and marketing a specific image of lolita. Does this reduce the phenomenon to something as a trend? I don’t agree that this is a mere fashion statement, but it so happens with the goth, ebm subculture where brands like cyberdog promote a specific look and inspiration is perhaps no more involved.

“it takes the idea, or the essence of Rococo, which is mostly an imagined/fantasy/idealised notion of the Rococo, and fuses/cuts and pastes it with elements appropriated from many other sources”

That’s what I thought. If you look at retro Gothic fashion since its inception, there has always been a disregard for historical accuracy. The same is true of every similar subculture and style I can think of. It seems that a generalized nostalgia for a non-specific time period is always the key element. I suppose Gothloli, like Goth in general, is symptomatic of a nostalgic for something that never truly existed.

There is a general tendency in postmodern cuture to mix elements from various periods without regard for ‘consistency’. (I’m thinking of period films such as ‘Marie Antoinette’ and ‘Easy Virtue’ which have used modern pieces on their soundtrack. Anachronistic, maybe, but I thought it worked.)

Yes James,
I agree with all of these observations. In this sense, for me, it’s what makes gothloli so neogothic, and aligns it with Goth. As you say, “like Goth… [it] is symptomatic of a nostalgic for something that never truly existed”. Same as Victorian Gothic Revivalism, which, in Design, looked back to a pre-industrial idyll, and medieval past, that was on the whole pure fantasy.

I support a notion that gothic revivals tend to arise at times of crisis (political/economical/cultural) and malaise. Remember the whole Dickensian Recession look of the very early 1980s?

That’s why I adored/adore Coppola’s Marie Antoinette because it takes from all of these things, and is connected with all of these things, everything I love, and makes a very intelligent statement. Friends of mine did not get all of the early 1980s references, especially in regard to their association with Rococo. I could go on forever here about an analysis of that film, but I won’t. Perhaps I’ll leave it for another blog entry. Suffice to say here at this point, though, Coppola’s Antoinette was a moment of sheer brilliance.

Hi Aspasia!
Thanks for your feedback. In regard to your questions:
Q: “Do you think that western lolitas share the same ideas as the Japanese lolitas?”
A: I think that, in general, they try. There’s a whole sense of wanting to prove that they “belong” to this subculture (a feeling that I get from my associations with Lolita worldwide on MySpace – http://www.myspace.com/botticelliangel_nz) and, therefore, they often try to follow dress and behaviour codes quite strictly in order to show that they have the Japanese mindset. In reality, though, many don’t and can’t really enter the mindset of the Japanese movement, as we all bring our own conditioning and environmental context into these things. A bit like the way Goth translates differently across different cultures.
Q: “Is there an underlying revolutionary quality in dressing up as sweet or gothic lolita in western countries?”
A: Intentionally, or unfortunately, I think that it comes across as less revolutionary in places other than Asian countries. However, it can feel revolutionary when wearing Lolita. It’s hard to explain, but as much as I love to wear my Gothic Lolita ensembles, you have to feel really emotionally strong, and in the right mood when you wear them. I believe there’s a difference for the viewer and the wearer. It looks quite sweet. But you have to feel strong enough to handle the power of it. When you wear these outfits there is paradoxiacally a feeling of empowerment simultaneous with a sense of being overwhelmed by it. It sometimes feels as if it disempowers one’s own identity. For me it’s an experiential thing that I find difficult to express.
Q: “…the existence of shops creating and marketing a specific image of lolita. Does this reduce the phenomenon to something as a trend?”
A: In Japan, Lolita is expensive, and can be extremely expensive. This aspect is something that is highlighted in the film, Kamikaze Girls. It is also of impeccable quality. Unfortunately, though, in the West, what is available through retail is a poorer quality (both inrinsically and in regard to taste). So yes, I believe it does reduce it down to just a watered down, tacky trend.

“Remember the whole Dickensian Recession look of the very early 1980s?”

Yes, and the New Romantics (although they ended by wearing zoot suits) began with an ahistorical ‘Regency’ look. What all these movements seem to have in common is a belief that, even if their ‘Golden Age’ never existed, the mere act of striving to emulate these values is ennobling.

In the case of ‘Marie Antoinette’, I thought the modern soundtrack humanized these potentially remote figures.
I was a bit young to get the early 80s references, though…Do you think the film symbolically linked Marie Antoinette’s Rococo conspicuous consumption with that of the Yuppies? Perhaps Marie Antoinette and Patrick Bateman have more in common than one might think…

I am not too young to remember these things. New Romanticism was so brilliant, another often undermined, or understated motivation. There are major connections between the New Romantic moment and gothloli. In fact, there is an evolutionary progression that goes right back to early 1970s Glam. The links are through both music and fashion. Thus Antoinette symbolises these links between Rococo, Regency, New Romanticism and Lolita.

That’s great Kathryn! I agree with your views.
There’s something especially about the gothic lolita and the “gothic” in lolita, that I am also interested in. What does it make it gothic? As for the music which is part of the movement, for example Mana Sama, which I do really like, more his Moi dix Mois, than Malice Mizer band, I find that gothic is more the aesthetic side, while music is more heavy metal, gothic metal. I think this makes it quite unique, but it seems that maybe Japanese subcultures, and I might be wrong, conceive western gothic subculture in a different way? And I will be very interested to know what other bands are following similar paths and how gothic music is integrated in the gothic lolita subculture.

Hello again, Aspasia.
There was a point in the early ’80s when there was some crossover with/collaboration between Japan and Britain musically, during the New Wave/post-Punk/Goth/New Romantic stage(and had also been in high/low Fashion since c. 1970).

From then on, it is my belief that the Japanese just continued to evolve in their own vein, to establish their own flavour/s. Some bands that Gothic Lolita follow (other than Moi Dix Mois of course):

1. Versailles Philharmonic Quintet (known in Japan as just Versailles but had to add the two other words due to copyright issues):
However, very sadly, Jasmine You, the bassist, died on August 9, this year. Details of his death have still not been released, and the future of the band has not been ascertained. Their visual style is very Rococo/swashbuckling Regency, with a taste of the romantic vampire in the lead singer, Kamijo. Their videos are visually Gothic. Their sound is orchestral/metal/Gothic: http://www.myspace.com/versaillesjp

2. BLOOD (always written in capital letters). I was lucky enough to see them live in Sydney while they were on tour, in 2008. Since then, they have, after quite a few years, unfortunately disbanded. Gothic/electro: http://www.myspace.com/bloodofficial

3. GPKISM: Formed by Gothique Prince Ken (GPK), a Japanese Australian musician, and Kiwamu, guitarist for BLOOD. Electro/Gothic: http://www.myspace.com/gpkism

I don’t know if the Japanese Goths perceive Western Goth differently. I think, perhaps, it’s more that they have their own scene.

On the other hand, in regard to Lolita, not all Lolita are Gothic Lolita, or into Gothic things. Many Lolita are into “sweeter” sounding J-Pop (Japanese Pop) groups and singers. Most prominently, many Lolita would be into:

About

The Gothic Imagination is based at the University of Stirling, Scotland and provides an interdisciplinary forum for lively discussion and critical debate concerning all manifestations of the Gothic mode. Queries to Dr Timothy Jones on timothy.jones@stir.ac.uk.

About

The Gothic Imagination is based at the University of Stirling, Scotland and provides an interdisciplinary forum for lively discussion and critical debate concerning all manifestations of the Gothic mode. Queries to glennis.byron@stir.ac.uk or dale.townshend@stir.ac.uk